When Barack Obama was a newbie president , there was no shortage of ambition or lack of confidence in the government he was about to lead . Government should be seen as a force for good , not evil . Sure , he told us , it needed to be `` smarter and better , '' but that could -- and would -- happen under his watch .

Never mind that Bill Clinton spent years `` reinventing government '' with mixed success . Or that only 2 % of the American public believes that government can be trusted to do the right thing all the time . President Obama was convinced he could change all that with programs that would deliver for America -- such as health care reform -- and the public would be grateful .

Instead , the President is living his own version of `` Alice Through the Looking Glass '' : staring down a rabbit hole of government bureaucracy and inefficiency . The government he has studiously tried to grow , manage and change has become his own personal nemesis . All of which makes you wonder : Does the President himself trust government anymore ?

The scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs is just the latest in a slew of bureaucratic messes that strike at the core power point of the Obama presidency : Making government work . Consider the disastrous health care website rollout . The IRS controversy . Even the question of NSA surveillance raises questions about the role of government : Did the civil libertarian Obama allow spies to run amok ?

The President is clearly having a running debate with himself over all this . About a year ago , after the NSA program was revealed and Democrats and libertarians started squawking , Obama seemed more than a tad defensive on government spying . `` If people ca n't trust not only the executive branch but also do n't trust Congress ... to make sure that we 're abiding by the Constitution ... '' he said , `` then we 're going to have some problems here . ''

Indeed .

These are not trivial matters . Health care is the signature legislative achievement of the administration , and a botched rollout made it smell bad at the start . Fixing the VA -- and aiding veterans -- is a cornerstone of the Obama presidency . And yet , it all looks as if somehow the bureaucracy has beaten the boss .

It 's a management issue . So far as I can tell , the governing style of this administration has two extremes : issues singled out for micromanagement -LRB- as in , foreign policy , from the West Wing -RRB- and issues completely delegated -LRB- as in , VA management -RRB- . What seems to be missing is the in-between : the continual monitoring and early warning system that avoids presidential blindsiding . That 's the area in which most of the business of government actually gets done .

And it can get done . The apparatus to do the nation 's business in a competent way is there . Use it , and manage it . That 's what chief executives are hired to do .

Government is unwieldy and difficult and hard to tame , sure . But if your presidency is based , in large part , on telling Americans that government can work for them -- which it can -- you need to make it work .

It 's not that the President is a hopeless manager . He does very well when he leads a hierarchical organization with a single goal , like a presidential bid . He 's top dog , he 's not negotiating with anybody , and he 's not trying to get people to do things they do n't want to do . In a campaign , for instance , they all want to elect the same person : him .

But when you have to negotiate -- or lead -- people not related to you , or not indebted to you or who do n't agree with you , it 's a different story . Managing or negotiating with people with mixed motives -LRB- Congress , anyone ? -RRB- is not an Obama strong point .

By nature , bureaucracies are hard to trust and even harder to tame . And if a chief executive is n't careful , it 's an energy-sapping -LRB- and legacy endangering -RRB- vortex that sucks you right in . Just ask Obama , who was government 's best friend .

Does he still feel that way today ? Hard to know . But my guess is he 's a bit like Alice in Wonderland . `` I ca n't go back to yesterday , '' she said , `` because I was a different person then . ''

Opinion : Obama is responsible for VA mess , but it may not be entirely his fault

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Obama 's plan was for a `` smarter and better '' government with demonstrable benefits

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Gloria Borger says President is instead staring down rabbit hole of government incompetence

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She says the VA scandal , after the health care website woes , highlights the problem

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Borger : Obama can be effective in managing but needs to grab control of bureaucracy